CNJ staff photo: Andy DeLisle Clovis Christian School senior Sidnee Pool, left, looks to see if anyone else is coming in the doors Friday as the seniors walk into the CCS Chapel for graduation. Pool was one of 17 graduates. By Helena Rodriguez: CNJ staff writer With boys robed in blue and gold gowns and […]

By Freedom Newspapers A case argued last week to the U.S. Supreme Court highlighted the absurdity of relatively recent reform laws that restrict political speech during the period just before an election. Such laws require regulators and courts to make absurdly fine distinctions that such bodies are not really qualified to make and should not […]

Dr. Elwyn Crume was president of the Clovis Toastmasters Club. He was planning a speech contest for high school boys. … Price Drugs, 318 Main St., was giving away a 1959 Studebaker Lark VI four-door sedan in a promotional drawing. … Freckles, Mutt & Jeff and Susie Q. Smith were popular comics. … Sears was […]

By Freedom Newspapers As H.L. Mencken once wrote, “The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one’s time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all.” That might be […]

By Freedom Newspapers Everyone celebrated Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday Monday recognizing the religious leader who led a faith-based campaign against government racial discrimination. Yet few noticed that Tuesday was Religious Freedom Day, created to celebrate the constitutional right, which 300 million of us still enjoy, just as did the Rev. King. In his proclamation […]

By Helena Rodriguez: Freedom Newspapers My sister Julie jokes that the national holiday on Jan. 15 is in honor of her birthday. Sorry Julie! Jan. 15 is Martin Luther King Jr. Day and it falls on Monday this year, the date of the legal observance. Since 1986, the United States has rightfully honored King, a […]

Editorial We hardly expected Kofi Annan’s last public speech as Secretary-General of the United Nations to be an introspective summing-up of the manifold failures and weakness of the organization he headed for 10 years and of his abject failure — nay, resistance — to any semblance of reform in one of the most unaccountable organizations […]

By Mona Charen: Syndicated Columnist My alma mater, Columbia University, has just invited Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to speak. Keeping up with the Joneses? Harvard (as well as the National Cathedral) hosted former Iranian president Ayatollah Khatami just a few weeks ago. Ahmadinejad himself chatted up a group at the Council on Foreign Relations following his speech […]

Dagan Gallegos,14, takes questions from the class about what he would do if he ruled the world in Keith Ingram’s public speaking class at Marshall Junior High. CNJ staff photo: Andy DeLisle By Marlena Hartz: CNJ staff writer As he faced a classroom of his peers, his limbs betrayed his anxiety. He shoved his hands […]

By Casey Peacock: Freedom Newspapers Royalty reigned at the first Roosevelt County Fair Queen Reunion, held Friday at the Jake Lopez Community Center. Past fair queens, sweethearts and sweetheart princesses mingled with this year’s reigning royalty and contestants to share lunch and reminisce about years past. Who the first Roosevelt County fair queen was seems […]

Elida High School graduates, from left, Mari Lopez, Jewlie Paiz and Steven Russell hold hands as they watch the class video Friday during the EHS commencement. (Freedom Newspapers: Karl Terry) By Paula Cronic: Freedom Newspapers ELIDA — A night of remembering, honoring and celebrating the high school careers of the six Elida High School seniors […]

By Leonard Pitts: Syndicated columnist What happened at the University of California-Irvine last week would have embarrassed a reasonably mature 8-year-old. It seems two campus groups, the College Republicans and the United American Committee, held a panel discussion about the riots that engulfed parts of the Middle East and Asia last month over a Danish […]

By Walter Williams: Syndicated columnist Do people have a right to medical treatment whether or not they can pay? What about a right to food or decent housing? Would a U.S. Supreme Court justice hold that these are rights just like those enumerated in our Bill of Rights? In order to have any hope of […]

Sandy Smith, 47, of Portales, died Monday, Nov. 7, 2005, at her home. She was born Oct. 13, 1958, in Portales to Ruby and Roy McCain. She moved to Roswell with her family when she was 4 years old. They returned to Portales 10 years later. She worked for a year at Boothe Pharmacy before […]

Freedom Newspapers When the founding fathers created the First Amendment, their main concern was political speech. They wanted a nation in which a people were free to engage in a free-wheeling debate about politics and politicians. The amendment was clear-cut: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise […]

Freedom Newspapers “Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred.” — Martin Luther King Jr. When it comes to historical figures, people often feel either a need to embrace them entirely, ignoring or denying contradictory or troubling things that they said or did. The […]

Freedom Newspapers Two new developments in the clash over religious expression at the Air Force Academy probably bear mentioning. Neither suggests the controversy will be ending anytime soon. The Senate last week approved, by a 99-0 vote, a measure that will leave decisions regarding the appropriateness of voluntary, nondenominational prayers at school functions to the […]

Freedom Newspapers Internet free speech isn’t under attack just in the People’s Republic of China, where “at least 23 journalists and about 50 cyberdissidents are in jail,” according to a 2004 report by Reporters Without Borders, a civil-rights group. Internet free speech also is under attack, albeit in a much different way, in the country […]

Freedom Newspapers The nation’s founders wrote the First Amendment explicitly to protect political speech. A healthy democracy is dependent on the ability of citizens, activists and politicians to express their views forcefully and with the widest possible latitude in the hopes that a free-for-all of ideas will lead to an informed voting public. Politicians and […]

By Kevin Wilson: Freedom Newspapers PORTALES — The American Civil Liberties Union has given assistance to a Portales man who says he was arrested for practicing religion in the city. Shawn Miller, 33, was released from the Roosevelt County Detention Center on Wednesday after more than three months in custody. He posted a $3,000 appearance […]